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Geoff Davis: NKY loses with Simpson’s bridge amendment

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Published 5:22 p.m. ET March 20, 2014

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<137>Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2013 BRENT SPENCE METRO : <137>The Federal Highway Administration has declared the Brent Spence Bridge “functionally obsolete,” meaning it is too small for modern traffic loads. Nearly $40 million in funding has been pulled from the replacement project and distributed to other projects across the state. Guest columnist Geoff Davis writes that lawmakers must work to restore those funds.<137> The trucking industry continues to feel the frustration of taxes and fees, and local truckers and industry officials aren’t happy about the possibility of a span along the nation’s busiest freight corridor being tolled. Transportation officials say the truckers will pay at least six times more in tolls than a passenger vehicle, and trucking industry officials say they’ll pass 100 percent of the cost onto the customers. The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger <137>(Photo: The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger)Buy Photo

Geoff Davis of Hebron represented Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District in Congress from 2005 to 2012.

While representing my congressional district in Washington, I worked with former U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning of Southgate to earmark nearly $50 million for the replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge.

The funding was essential to lay the foundation for the major reconstruction and replacement project, but also to ensure that money was available to keep the project moving forward. Anyone who has remotely followed Kentucky state government over the years knows that historically, Northern Kentucky as a region sends far more tax dollars to Frankfort than it ever receives in return.

So it was with tremendous frustration that I watched as events unfolded earlier this week surrounding actions taken by state Rep. Arnold Simpson of Covington.

On Monday, the Kentucky House of Representatives passed House Bill 407, legislation that allows Kentucky to use public-private partnerships, or 3P, to fund and build major infrastructure projects such as the Brent Spence Bridge.

A total of 34 states, including every state bordering Kentucky, allow 3Ps. I applaud the Kentucky House for taking this innovative funding approach that fuses public money with private investment to build projects quicker and more efficiently at a time when federal and state funding is dwindling.

But rather than embrace 3Ps, Rep. Simpson attached a short-sighted amendment to the bill that prevents a 3P approach from even being considered in the future on the Brent Spence Bridge.

Even more troubling is the effect that the Simpson amendment has now had on the funding that was included in the state’s two-year budget, which is now moving through the approval process in Frankfort.

Prior to the Simpson amendment being filed and approved, $60 million was inserted into the budget. The money was to be used to continue moving the bridge project forward. But following the passage of the 3P bill and the Simpson amendment, $37 million of the money was removed by the House and distributed to other projects across the state.

Northern Kentucky loses again.

That money was to be used for right-of-way acquisition and utility relocation. Frankfort leadership declared that the remaining $23 million could not be redirected away from Northern Kentucky because it was the unspent remnant of the federal funds that Sen. Bunning and I earmarked for the Brent Spence. Yet without that additional $37 million, there is not enough money to continue work on the bridge project.

Federal earmarks are a thing of the past and won’t be coming back to save the Brent Spence Bridge project in the future. Northern Kentucky has to control its own destiny.

To put it simply, the Simpson amendment cost Northern Kentucky nearly $40 million and stalls the Brent Spence Bridge for who knows how long.

Rep. Simpson admitted his amendment was designed to delay the project. Without recovering those funds now, he may have made this project the true “Bridge to Nowhere.”

Hopefully, the state senators representing Northern Kentucky will put the region’s interest forward and work to restore the $37 million in funding necessary to keep the project on track.

Waiting does nothing other than push off a problem that needs to be addressed. As The Enquirer reported Wednesday, each year of delay costs another $100 million in public dollars due to increased construction costs. The daily traffic gridlock, exacerbated by a simple vehicle breakdown and made worse with a major accident, is not easing. And the safety of the 150,000 cars that cross the bridge each day will certainly not improve by waiting.

The bridge’s state of disrepair is agonizing. The Federal Highway Administration has declared the Brent Spence “functionally obsolete,” meaning that it is too small for modern traffic loads. The aging span carries twice its intended traffic load, does not have emergency breakdown lanes and occasionally sheds chunks of concrete onto vehicles.

The late U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Rep. Simpson may say we can wait on the bridge, but I disagree. The facts tell the true story. ■